So it’s a few days into the new regime and the weather has only gotten worse. Well, this morning the sun may have come out again, but why dwell on facts? Am I doing this right?

This was inauguration weekend, which is always loud but this year came with all the fervor of a good football game. Things almost got as bad as when college kids celebrate championships! Go Sports!

No but seriously. There was a lot of action this weekend. Upwards of 4 or 5 million people total on EVERY continent (including Antarctica!) marched and demonstrated for various reasons related to Trump’s campaign promises, cabinet picks, sexual preferences… the list really goes on and on here. Or as Aziz Ansari said, it’s only day 1 and Trump’s already got an entire gender demonstrating globally just how unsatisfied he’s left them. Ouchhh #sickburn. The Women’s march on Saturday was the single largest march EVER in American history. Wow. What’s the word I’m looking for? … Tremendous!

I live just outside DC so I went into the city when I could, but sadly I couldn’t spend much time down in the real thick of things. I only ended up downtown for a little over an hour Friday evening, but even that happened to put me at the exact moment and place where “the limo” was set on fire.

Yup, that one.

Just a single block away was McPherson Square, where a huge family-friendly, non-violent, peaceful protest was taking place. Several groups like Black Lives Matter, anti-war groups, anti-Dakota Access Pipeline land and water protectors from Standing Rock, pro-choice/pro-ACA demonstrators, LGBTQ activists and others all had converged on McPherson Square for a beautiful moment of art, music, and dialogue spanning all their missions and where they all intersected.

The “Deport Trump” community art wall set up by @dc2standingrock (instagram)

Literally one block down, however, was quite a different story. There, a ring of smoldering trash cans made for an art installation straight out of Silent Hill, while another flaming can lay few meters away going solo. All around it, people took selfies and artistic photos of the street art. Then somebody set a limo on fire. Apparently people were surprised by how easy it was by just mashing a window and throwing a flare in the cabin. At that point the white smoke from the dying trash can fires was devoured by the thick black smoke of the limo… art.

Once the limo was… dare I say… lit, those selfie sticks went away and people started backing off the street and onto Franklin Square (one block down from McPherson). Well, a lot of people did. A lot got real close to the street again soon after. Trying to figure out how far back was far enough in case that limo exploded, I wondered then, why a crowd started to form again along the street. I could see a few professional-looking cameras scurrying along behind reporters with awkwardly large microphones, along with all the usual cell phones in the sky for a better angle all rushing the street again. I was confused until I heard the concussion grenades felt a bit of that pepper spray sting on my eyes.

Ah, like Johnny Cash said, that old, familiar sting…

Turns out the “front line” of riot cops had pushed protesters back down the street, from further down the road toward McPherson and the peaceful demonstrations happening on the next block back. Out of nowhere it seemed that block had become the center of the ongoing clash between the riot police line and those refusing to leave the street. From a few yards off the street all you could see was a crowd of people backing up and moving in closer, like the tides, while above the crowd things were being thrown back and forth: concussion grenades, blocks of rock and concrete, sticks, the orange arch of pepper spray, echoing the new president’s majestically wispy hairline…

Now, I’m not one to take credit where it isn’t deserved, so at that point I decided to head out. ;D Heh. As I turned away and faced the rest of the crowd, not only did I see reporters (like even that one guy from France24!) but all types of onlookers, from scary-looking guys in black bandanas, to scared-looking families wearing matching red “Make America Great Again” hats, to native elders in full regalia. I even saw that guy with the boot on his head! Vermin Supreme, who has run for president every election for a while, had his boot on his head and a megaphone in his hand and he was repeating health advice, like how you might want to take out your contacts before getting pepper sprayed because that’s never any fun.

The red hats are coming, the red hats are coming!

Still, the image that sticks with me the clearest is one of a big white man in a nice suit and long blue coat, pulling his small daughter by the hand. Both wearing matching red MAGA hats, they were both on the far end of McPherson, a good distance from the non-family-friendly action happening over by Franklin Square. They were moving with another crowd, the pro-Trump visitors and inauguration attendees who I assume wanted a glimpse of the peaceful community protest space on their way to the metro.

But just looking at this crowd of singers and artists and demonstrators, this father had this look of such terror on his face, while his daughter was so intrigued by it all. Both red hats sat above jaws that had fallen to the floor. The terror in one’s eyes bouncing of the amazement in the other’s, this one father-daughter duo remains such a clear image in my head. I don’t think they even saw the riot police or the limo on fire. That was, after all, a couple blocks down.

No, I think they came for a day of family fun and got slapped with just a little bit of struggle and reality, terrifying the father and mesmerizing the daughter. Why do I get a feeling this is happening all over?

The next night I helped support some of the people caught up in the pool of 200 the police arrested on Friday. People were corralled for being near the action, but of course those who actually did anything ghosted way before the cops actually got their shit together enough to respond. So unable to charge anyone with specific offenses, everyone was held overnight and released with some b.s. “disturbing the peace” charges and things like that. Quite a few were from out of town and didn’t really have any support networks out here so others helped give them food once they were released, rides from the station, and places to stay for the night. This was all especially helpful since some weren’t released until midnight Saturday. Though everyone’s phones were confiscated “as evidence” leading some people to get arrested by association just for going to pick others up from the police station. And clothes with large amounts of pepper spray on them weren’t given back either.

I dunno. Smelling kinda fishy these days… I sure do hope this weather clears up soon.

Onward and upward.

Z

P.s. The Trump portrait and the first limo pic are not mine. The rest are. Except the words, every one of which I learned from someone else.

Hey there! Welcome all yee weary travellers to my blog! Come! Sit! Enjoy a pint of me fine ale and let us shoot the shit for a while. I’ll admit up front this is my first run at the world of blogging, but I suppose it’s all the rage these days so, you know, carpe diem and such.

So here’s my deal. My name’s Zach. In a nutshell, I am an absurd word nerd with a bachelors in English and obsessions with music and mayhem. I grew up in Maryland (Murdaland), just outside of Washington DC. I wasn’t born in Maryland, but I’ve spent the last two decades there and I am ready to leave. Thankfully for my lucky ass though, I actually have a way out! Although some might call me crazy… See, come September 1st I will once again place my tray tables in an upright position behind the seat in front of me, and hop across the pond to Bamako, Mali where I have the pleasure of laying my head to rest for the foreseeable future. West Africa. With all its lions and ebola and wars, oh my!

Why Africa, you ask? Well… why not?! It is the true motherland after all. Anyone who has grown up studying Euro-centric maps may not see the point in stepping even one foot into the “heart of darkness,” but in reality Africa is everyone’s first home. Imagine raw natural beauty as far as the eye can see. Imagine giants roaming, without any hint of a cage. Africa is the Wild – with a capital ‘W.’ To most television enthusiasts it’s the dark spot on the map that reads, “here there be monsters.” But in reality its landscapes, it’s people, and it’s cultures are nothing less than unimaginably beautiful. Raw beauty at its finest, Africa is Nature.

The African continent itself is way more expansive than any Euro-centric maps make it out to seem. Most do not realize, but Russia, China, and the USA could all fit within Africa side – by – side. Nor do most doctors realize that Hippocrates studied medicine and learned of disease while studying in Egypt, or Kemet, as it was called. Greece begot modern medicine, but Africa begot Greek medicine. You see, there are no such thing as “third-world” countries. Contrary to popular belief, the African continent is not covered in barbarians and beasts. The concept itself is laughable, to assume any one country, and its people exist in some other, inherently lesser world than we, the mighty industrialized few. As if the ability to produce carbon monoxide and nuclear weapons at a revolutionary rate marks the pinnacle of civility.

No, there are no first-world or third-world countries. Some draw the line at industrialized and unindustrialized countries, but I see it differently. In today’s world of guns, germs, and steel, the answer is clear. There are countries that are oppressed, and there are countries that oppress. I truly urge anyone reading to honestly consider of which you are a part.

Of course those with imperialistic histories, who, fueled by the blood of the poor have colonized the world are sure to give “aid” to these “struggling” countries, but it’s actually more along the lines of a bully helping the small kid off the bus so he can take his lunch money later. That’s not to say there are no good people working in the dark corners of the world, but the French, the Dutch, the Americans – we, the oppressors – are all deeply invested in these African countries because LOOK AT ALL THOSE DIAMONDS!!!! No, seriously though; oil, diamonds, gold… major imperialstic nations have long colonized and utilized African land and resources to export back home, bleeding the richest continent on the planet dry. These days, the coltan, or tantalite in our smartphones are the blood diamonds of the 21st century. Rebels and coups are financed to ensure steady extraction to the western world. So why go to Africa? Because it is the world’s biggest playground; the real Wild West. And it needs all the help it can get.

I fell in love with the dark continent through my parents. My parents met, married, and lived in Africa for almost 20 years. My father met my mother in the Peace Corps while my mother was visiting her sister doing the same. Africa is my family. My brother’s first language was French, though he remembers little now. My sister was born in South Africa. The motherland has left its undeniable and inescapable mark on my family. Now, my father has once again descended back, this time to Bamako, Mali to help fight Malaria, and I’m just crazy enough to go with him. Me, with my love of poetry, obscenety, and heavy metal. As Kevin Hart says, I can’t tell you what’s about to happen. All I can say is, it’s about – to go – down.

So that’s all for now folks. See you on the front lines.

Onward and upward.
– Z

P.s. Here are some videos from one of my old bands, Be All My Sins Remembered (aka Failure in the Flesh).